Chapter 30: Throned Bandits

“We’re coming up on the Jeis Ruins, sir” A man said. He wore studded leather armor that wrapped around him tightly.

“Finally. Those bastards are gonna pay up, finally. They spent all their money on booze and jewels but never paid us back. We’re gonna teach’em a lesson, lads” A man in full metal armor said. He wore no helmet, to show the other man who was in charge and to keep his face in the air. He leaned against a tree with his arms crossed.

“Of course, sir. They will feel our fury!” Another man said before letting out a maniacal chuckle. Behind him stood 15 other men of various shapes and sizes wielding the weapon that suited them the most.

They marched towards Jeis Ruins to collect the debt that their leader had collected over time. The leader let out a low chuckle before he got off the tree.

“Well, lets go” The leader said before they marched towards Jeis Ruins.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Well, that’s new” A voice said, breaking the void.

Jerry sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes.

“Ah, Dark Void Demon Man, is that you?” Jerry said, analyzing his surroundings.

Jerry sat on a black surface that seemed to extend endlessly. The area he was in was entirely black with the exception of the chair that the man sat on. His chair seemed to be made of a cushions of the seat were made of red velvet on the seat and held the skeleton made of smooth metal.

“Yes, Jerry, tis is I, Dark Void Demon Man” The man said.

“Let’s not” Jerry said as he looked at the man.

“I agree. Call me Void” The man said.

“Void? Really?”

“I’m not good at naming things, okay?”

“Yea yea. So, what do you want?”

“I wanted to reward you for your wonderful display at Jeis Ruins” Void said.

“What’s that reward?”

“Another orb”

“Head pain included?”

“Nope. That’s a one time thing. Now, got one on your mind?”

“Maybe the Orb of Explosion thing?”

“Orb of Explosive Touch?”

“Yea, that thing”

“Great. Learn with it” Void said before he snapped his finger.

Jerry then found light to start warping towards Jerry emitting a blinding light causing him to cover his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself in at a standing desk with various items laid in front of him with targets on the field that expanded in front of him.

Jerry looked at the desk in front of him to find rocks, arrows, knives, and other various items in front of him. He picked up a knife, feeling it’s weight before tossing it harmlessly into the field. He tried to find a trigger to blow it up, but to no avail.

Void then appeared behind him with a black cloud.

“I also forgot to mention, you do need to put a trigger on the item before activating it” Void said.

Jerry went over on the field and picked up the knife again before returning to his original spot. He looked at the knife and tried many times using his ability to put a trigger in it. He then felt something. Something that told him that he had done it causing him to throw the knife into the field.

Jerry then tried to detonate the knife out in the field. It took a while, but he was able to detonate the knife in the field after a while. The shrapnel from the knife blew everywhere causing a piece to enter Jerry’s brain.

Jerry turned around and faced Void while pointing to the shrapnel sticking out of his head.

“Is this normal?” Jerry asked.

“Yea, that’s pretty normal. Here, let me take it out of you” Void said before he grabbed the shrapnel and pulled it out, revealing no blood to be on the shrapnel.

“See? Like nothing was ever there” Void said.

Jerry placed his hand where the shrapnel once stuck out of to find that there was nothing there, not even a wound.

“You’re just in a dream. But I’m using my magic to keep you in the dream. Carry on” Void said as he laid down on air and watched Jerry.

Jerry turned around and picked up the rock that was on the table. Jerry tossed it fairly far and blew it up mid air, watching the rock blow up into small and large chunks as it entered the ground. Jerry thought about what about breaching a wall or a door before he found himself in a hall.

“When you’re ready” Void said.

Jerry nodded before placing his hand on a door that was wooden with no distinguishing features. Jerry then leaned up against the wall and faced away from the door before triggering the explosion. The explosion caused a ringing in Jerry’s ears before he started to simulate clearing the room. He pretended to raise his rifle and entered the room, sweeping the entire room.

Jerry sighed before he placed his hands down to his sides and turned around to find Void looking at him as if he was studying him.

“Interesting” Void said.

“Don’t study me, please” Jerry said.

“So, you done training?” Void asked.

“I got the grasp of it. I got a question though”

“Well, I got an answer”

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“When I used the blink for a while, why’d that thing happen?”

“Oh, mana fatigue. Yea, bad times. You got like, 250 mana I think. Blink costs 50 each but when you deplete it all, you should take a nap for a while. The more you’re awake, the worse it gets. You can get it back awake if you haven’t depleted it all, but I mean, it’s slow as hell. Sleeping for 8 hours replenishes your mana entirely compared to staying awake for 24 hours to your mana entirely. Explosive Touch depends on the item. Stuff like rocks and knives I showed you cost 15 and walls or doors cost 25” Void explained.

“Got it, now wake me up. Gotta loot and scoot”

“As you wish” Void said before he snapped his finger.

Jerry quickly sat up gasping for breath as he looked around him before calming down. Jerry looked at the corpse that sat near him, remembering what happened before feeling a wave of guilt go over him. Jerry patted down his backpack to find that he forgot to pack cigarettes before tossing it away from him before sitting down and burying his head in his hands, thinking about what he had done.

He didn’t know how long had passed before he raised his head again, returning to his normal state of mind. He needed to repack his magazines and set out for the thorned bandits.

Jerry sat up, and picked up his backpack and searched around for extra bullets before remembering he didn’t pack any extra bullets.

‘Well, ain’t that just great’

Jerry picked up his backpack and went around to do some looting.Most of the bandits on the inside of the ruins had a few coins, nothing large on them other than some jewels and rings. Jerry quickly pocketed these and looked for keys or anything he could use. The bandits inside the walls of the ruins contained nothing that he could use so he started to move outside.

Jerry’s mind soon blanked as he looted the bodies as he soon developed a checklist that he would go through. He would first pat down the pockets before checking the shirt or hip for anything before moving onto the hands to look for rings. He would glance at the weapon as he did this to see if there was anything special about them that he could take.

After he finished, he went back inside the ruins to preform an inventory check. So far, he had 10 gold, 3 silver, and 9 bronze coins. He had three keys and assortments of jewels and rings.

Jerry ventured towards the cook area as his stomach roared from hunger. There was a metal pot over an extinguished fire and it contained soup and some traces of vegetables and meat. Jerry looked at it for a while before placing the lid back on it, deciding against eating it. He walked to the main tower in the center of the ruins and inserted a random key the corpses had. As he turned the key, it met heavy resistance showing that it wasn’t the right key. Jerry tried another one, allowing the key to freely turn, opening the lock. He twisted the knob and pushed the door in, showing a pillar with stairs that lead up onto the top of the tower.

The stairs twisted around the pillar in the center of the tower, seeming to be endless as Jerry climbed the stairs. Eventually, he reached the top of the ruins. It looked well organized, with a bookshelf on the wall, a made bed, and a desk by a window and a candle on it. There was a chest propped up against the bed with a lock on it and a wardrobe along the wall with a lock on it.

Jerry unlocked the wardrobe first, failing the first time with the wrong key before successfully getting it the second time. He pulled the doors open to find a sword decorated in gold and jewels of different colors. The scabbard that covered the blade had a white material that covered the center while the edges of it were engraved while being decorated by gold. On each side of the guard was a red jewel that was inserted into it. The pommel was decorated gold and had a point on it and the guard was engraved and lined with gold and ivory.

Jerry exposed the blade to find that the there were red, blue, gold, and a green gem lined along the center of the sword near the guard of the sword. Jerry let out a low whistle before he picked it up feeling it’s hefty weight. Jerry swung it around a couple of times like a baseball player, impacting the wardrobe a couple of times before putting it back into the scabbard.

Jerry placed it into his bag but it was too small to conceal it entirely causing the guard and handle to be exposed. Jerry then unlocked the chest with the key that didn’t work on the wardrobe and the door and opened it. Inside, he found letters and a filled bag along with a filled bottle.

Jerry placed the bag from the chest into his backpack bag and picked the letter and bottle up and sat down on the desk before opening up the letter and reading it.

Look, fucko, I want my cash soon or I’m gonna shove your head up your ass and string you along a horse riding down the most ridged path we can find. You have 5 days to find my cash, or you’re dead. 500 gold coins, remember?

-Thorned Bandits

Jerry shook the bottle to find that it was partially empty before taking a sniff of it. It smelled like alcohol and was likely that. Jerry shook his head sarcastically before he tossed the bottle out the window.

Jerry checked out the total amount of magazine for how many bullets left he had to spend to find that he had 15 AP-F rounds, 2 magazines of Ball ammo, and 1 magazine of AP. For his pistol, he had two full magazine and 5 bullets in his current one. Jerry then went back down the stairs and into the field.

He found a man crouched over a body along with two others by his side. The man got up and looked at Jerry with a sword around his shoulder. Jerry replaced the AP-F round he had with Ball rounds.

“Hey there. Can I help you?” Jerry asked.

“This your doing?” The man asked. He had full plate armor but wore no helmet, exposing a scarred face with a stubble beard. He had little hair and bore a scar on his left eye.

“Yea. Why?”

“They owed us some cash. And we can’t collect from dead men”

“500 Gold coins?”

“Yea, how’d you know”

“Oh, there was a letter in the tower. This would mean that you’re the Thorned Bandits, right?”

“Yea. Why?”

Jerry raised his rifle and shot him in the chest before taking aim at his companions. Upon the man dying, the other two companions scattered, but the one on the right was unable to escape Jerry’s sights and was quickly put down.

“You’re mine!” The third companion screamed as he raised his weapon ready to strike Jerry’s head. To counter this, Jerry blinked away before placing a few shots into the third companion.

“Huh, that was easy” Jerry said as he reloaded his weapon.

“Captain, are you okay?” A voice sounded outside the walls.

‘Shit’

Jerry quickly turned around and laid on his stomach, ready for people to enter the opening.

“Captain!” A man said as he made the unfortunate mistake of entering Jerry’s sights before he was quickly shot and killed.

Jerry blinked backwards, now placing him at 150 mana but was allowed to keep going for a bit before he had to stop using magic. Jerry picked up a random rock from the remains of the ruins and tossed it at the opening before detonating it. Multiple screams could be heard as the rock exploded. Jerry did a quick pulse scan to outline targets.

15 Hostiles Detected!

4x Archers

5x Brutes

2x Mages

4x Rogues

Most of the outlines were clumped together, causing Jerry to pick up some large rocks and placing them into his pockets. He could only fit two in total but held one in his hands before going to the opening. Outside were 5 bandits that slowly walked towards the opening where Jerry was but while Jerry could see them, they could not see Jerry.

Jerry tossed the rock towards them before detonating the rock causing their outlines to no longer exist as they fell victim to an exploding rock. Jerry then got onto the wall through the stairs to engage the next few bandits. The next set of bandits were 3 in total as they stood up as they heard the explosion. Jerry quickly peeked and sprayed them down with an entire magazine causing them to be riddled with hole as they fell down to the ground.

After that, seven more bandits remained. Jerry put his rifle away and brought his pistol out ready to engage the next few targets. Jerry took out a rock from his pocket and held it in his right hand while the pistol was in his left. He then reached the next set of bandits that had six in a group. Jerry put away his pistol and held both rocks in his hands before tossing them over the walls towards the bandits.

“What the” The bandit said before he met his demise as an explosion went off, killing them off.

Their outlines disappeared save for one causing Jerry to peek to finish him off. Jerry was then met with an arrow that bounced off his helmet, causing Jerry to change targets. Out in the distance was an archer that was getting ready for the next shot. Jerry shot his pistol towards the archer causing him to fall to the ground, but his outline still remaining.

Jerry had gotten careless when he peeked and didn’t check properly for any other targets.

‘That’s what I get’ Jerry thought as he brought up his rifle to take aim.Jerry fired at the fallen archer to finish him off before taking aim at the wounded bandit below. However, his outline had already disappeared, signifying that he was dead.

Jerry lowered his rifle to check the new bodies that had appeared as he walked down the steps.

It had been three days since he had been out of the Imperial Nation still borrowing the horse from the guild. He should return soon before the horse starved to death and he would have to walk the entire way and explain to the guild why it died. Next time, he should pack rations for the horse as well Jerry thought before he crouched down next to the Thorned Bandit leader and patted his pockets.